9/17/13

A recent news release is bad news for those who think everyone and their brother should be armed. From NPR:

Investigators now do not think there was a second shooter, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said late Monday evening. Throughout Monday, authorities had run down witness reports and other evidence indicating there might have been additional gunmen.

Aaron Alexis, acting alone, killed twelve people and died himself as a result of his rampage. And the fact that there was no second -- or third -- shooter is a terrible blow to the "arm everyone" argument, since it demonstrates panicked people aren't extremely good at identifying shooters. Second shooter reports had other shooters wearing uniforms with guns drawn wandering around, causing havoc. But these "shooters" were most likely law enforcement. Had any one of these witnesses been armed, the tragedy would likely have been aggravated. The panicked witness might've fired on law enforcement and, given the situation, there's no reason for the law enforcement personnel not to return fire.

Those arguing that workers in the Navy Yard were needlessly turned into sitting ducks by a "gun free zone" are wrong. They'll no doubt be surprised to find out that everything they've learned from their countless hours playing "Call of Duty" is wrong. The real world works in a way contrary to what the "guns solve everything" crowd would have you believe. Given everything we know, more guns in that situation would've made things much worse, not better.

But of course these fantasy-based hypotheses don't come from the brains of the people who repeat them, for the most part. They're fed to these chumps by gun industry lobbyists who couldn't care less if they live or die. For them, every mass shooting is both a problem and a gift. A problem in that it wakes up calls for common sense gun regulation. A gift in that their target audience are cowardly fools who see any act of violence as a good reason to buy more guns. So, after every mass shooting, gun sales go up as the gun lovers crap themselves in sheer terror. And at the same time, calls for gun regulations increase, as less fearful people realize that an armed society isn't turning out to be anything close to a safer society.

But hey, let's entertain the gun nuts fantasy anyway. Let's say an armed killer enters a place where everybody has a gun and starts blasting. What might this look like?

CNN: A former Navy SEAL known for claiming a record number of sniper killings in Iraq was one of two men shot dead at a Texas gun range, allegedly at the hands of a fellow military veteran, officials say.

Chris Kyle, the author of the best-selling "American Sniper," and Chad Littlefield, also a veteran, were gunned down Saturday afternoonon the grounds of the expansive Rough Creek Lodge and Resort in Glen Rose, Texas, southwest of Fort Worth, law enforcement officials said.

About four hours afterward, and 90 miles from where those two men's bodies were found by a hunting guide, authorities arrested suspect Eddie Ray Routh, 25, on a capital murder warrant.

So two armed, combat-trained, and exceptionally capable veterans were murdered by a shooter -- at a gun range, where everyone was armed. He is not stopped by Second Amendment Heroes at this point, but is able to run back to his car and escape, to be apprehended 90 miles away by law enforcement. It turns out that the difference between armed heroes among armed heroes and sitting ducks in a gun free zone is largely a sales job. Rough Creek Lodge and Resort can be happy that Routh fled before the cops showed up or all their Second Amendment Heroes might've wound up exchanging gunfire with "second shooters" who happened to be cops. As it is, all those guns did nothing to prevent tragedy or bring the killer to justice.

In fact, Aaron Alexis began his rampage with a shotgun. He died with a shotgun, a pistol, and an AR-15 assault rifle. He was collecting weapons as he went along. What weapons there were in the Yard didn't stop him, they enabled him.

A gun free zone is no less safe from gun violence than a gun range. And people being fired upon suck at identifying shooters. The fact that employees at the Navy Yard aren't allowed to carry weapons is blessing, not a curse. Anyone who believes otherwise is disinterested in the facts and reason. They're only interested in rationalizing their cowardly over-reliance on firearms.